School......

 

Jackson's started school on Tuesday. For his first day of 1st grade - he was pretty nonchalant about the whole thing - like he hadn't just had a long summer vacation. He wasn't worried about finding his classroom, meeting his teacher or anything. I am glad that we didn't have to change schools because of another move out here. I'm also glad that it is a smaller school and there is only one class in his grade. He was really excited getting off the bus - he was yelling to me the whole way up the hill from the bus stop. Apparently the next day they were going to get to work with M&M s and his teacher was the nicest one EVER!! That makes me feel better :) He has such a sensitive side that I worry about him sometimes. The bad news..... see how he is holding his tummy in one of the pictures? That night he threw up a few times and couldn't go to school the next day. He wasn't at all sad about that eventhough he missed out on M&Ms. He said they were going to use them for a couple of days so he would still get a chance. It is hard to have him gone so much of the day - he's so little!! :) yet so big. Onward and upward I guess.

Funny things kids say....

I need to remember to post these funny things more often...
The other day Jackson asked me if I played with Hot Wheels cars when I was little. I said I did and he goes "That means that they are antique!" I told him that the ones he plays with now are not antique that they were just made so they weren't old. And he says "Yeah, but the ones you played with are REALLY old!" Huh. Thanks bud. Didn't realize I would start feeling so old so young :)

Caleb

 

I just love this little face!! Caleb has been an excellent baby. It's funny how you just adjust to whatever your circumstances are. It feels like he has always been a part of our family. He is starting to play with toys a little. He just bats at things if they are close to his face - so you can put him down on the floor for some playtime now. The other kids are doing fairly well watching out for him..... His sleep schedule is still pretty erratic but I'm okay with that because he sleeps in long stints.

A little more pool party

 

Here are a few more pics from the swimming pool. A friend held Caleb so I could get in the water and swim with the kiddos. It was nice to be able to get in and spend time with them. The only rule the pool really had was that a child with flotation devices had to be with an adult. So Jackson was happy that he could go off the diving board but annoyed that I had to go down there with him.

Pool Party

 

Jackson's school hosted a back 2 school party for all the kids. These guys loved it!! They are all water bugs :) I got life jackets for all of them so they don't stress me out completely when I am the only one with them. Especially because the pools around here seem really lax on the lifeguard side....... Jackson still loves to get things off the bottom of the pool. He also really wanted to be able to go off the diving board without his life jacket so he practiced and practiced. He made a lot of progress and did go off the board without it but just a few times before he realized it was really hard work. He needs to build up his swimming muscles! Hailey will just swim around and do her own thing - I really have to keep an eye on her or she just goes off on her own. Maggie also swims around with no fear. She wouldn't go off the diving board this time though. It was a little higher than the last pool we were at. She went off that board no problem. Although Maggie was definitely more interested in the snacks at the party than she was in swimming this time. Hailey kept getting on the board and jumping but she didn't want to go off into the water. She just wanted to jump on it. She gets cold easily and once that happens her ambition goes away and she plays out of the water. After Jackson watched the teenage boys doing tricks off the board he was trying it out. Good thing that life jacket adds some padding he did a number of back and belly flops. I wish I had video of him trying the back flips - he mostly would do a back dive but with no hesitation. Sometimes he amazes me! We really need to swim more. They all LOVE it.

Yucky face

 

Maggie was taking pictures and requested a yucky face. She was pretty happy with the results. Sometimes it's fun to have irregular pictures of myself :)

Sad Hailey

 

This is what Hailey looks like when she walks into a room - planning to sit with me - and finds Caleb already on my lap. Poor girl. Most of the time she really enjoys having Caleb around and is very sweet with him but she hates to have her lap sitting plans thwarted. She will then drag his little rocker seat over and demand "Bela, down!" as she points strongly to the seat.

Caleb

 

This has been 95% done for weeks. I really don't know why it took me so long to finish it but here it is! It's a lot of fun to make birth announcements myself but I have such a hard time making decisions and commiting to the final product that I'm not sure if it's worth it.
Caleb is a very good baby. He sleeps really well but always wants to be held when he is going to sleep. He was doing a lot better but his two month shots threw him off. He weighed in at 14 lbs and was 25 in long. Such a big boy!! He smiles a lot now and holds up his head very steady. He also "talks" a lot. I remember thinking the other babies were so quiet and didn't coo like the books said they would. He does. Now I understand what it means. He makes so many noises when he is talking to us. It's very cute. He loves to be wrapped (swaddled) and when he is fussy it really calms him down. He likes to just hang out and look around while swaddled. He really stretches when you unwrap him though.

This move has been incredibly stressful. It makes me a little sad to be so distracted when Caleb is so small. I will have to remember to post about him more because I have a feeling I won't remember very much of this age if I don't. We have been here over 6 months now and I haven't adjusted to it anymore than at the beginning. I feel like we are here on an extended visit.

Hailey is 2!

 

Today is Hailey 2nd birthday. I can't believe it's here already. It seemed so far away when Caleb was born and now it has come and gone. It was kind of fun to decorate a little more for her party. Usually I am playing with the cake but 1- our oven doesn't work and 2- we have almost no counter space so I opted to buy an ice cream cake instead of making one. I was a little sad - I love to make their cakes. None of them got homemade cakes this year. Ho hum. Maggie helped me with the presents and wrapping. They turned out very cute. We just used plain pink wrapping paper and taped black mickey cut outs on them. We tied a minnie inspired ribbon on another and that's it. Hailey's very cute mickey ears were just a template that I printed off and taped to black cardstock to make a headband. I tied a pink bow and glued it on. She was so cute! :) She kept it on for quite awhile. She was excited when she woke up from her nap and saw all her presents at the table. She said "birthday", "open". So we did the cake and cupcakes. She loved blowing out her candle. She kept saying "birthday, blow" the rest of the day. Then we started in on the presents. She would open one, play with it for few minutes and then open another. She had "present" down really well by the end too. This is a little unrelated but something I would like to remember from this age so.... she likes to play a game a little like marco polo. She calls out "Momma?" and I say "What, Hailey?" over and over until she tracks me down. This happens almost everytime I leave the room :) She is quite attached to me. Most of the time I don't really mind. It does make doing the dishes and cooking dinner a little difficult. Either I am tripping over her or she has her hands in the middle of it.

Tie-tastic!

 

Speaking of creating things..... I made this cute tie onsie for Caleb :) Last week he wore a sweater vest to church and I had to take it off because he got to hot in it. So in order to keep him cooler yet dressed for church.... I appliqued this tie to his white onsie. Now he looks like a little accountant or nerd... don't you love how it matches his brown pants? :) That might have been just a little overkill. Oh, well. I think it turned out very cute. I saw the idea online somewhere. It was very easy to do (I won't mention the part where I ironed the first tie onto a towel because I had the heatnbond upside down....) and quite cheap. I think I will have to do a few more in various colors and sizes. I think it's more comfortable for him than a collar shirt. He's worn one of those also and spent most of the time trying to eat the collar when it would brush against his face.....

It's Outta Here!

 

Jackson's loose tooth came out..... We were at a friends house for a BBQ and he was talking about his tooth. Matt told him to just try to leave it alone and wait for it to come out on it's own. A little while later Jackson comes up and says, in his very honest manner, "Dad I just did exactly what you told me not to do." Then he reaches in and pulls his tooth out of his mouth. I wonder if he put it back in hoping it would stay...... Anyway, he said he just pushed on it with his tongue and it came out so we told him it must have been ready so he didn't really disobey. Something that is quite common for him.
He was very excited to put it under his pillow that night. It led to a lively discussion (outright argument)between he and Maggie on the way home about what the tooth fairy looks like. I think in the end Jackson went with tiny and Maggie went with giant, pink fairy princess with wings.
He was very happy with the 4 quarters he found under his pillow to be added to his stash. We really need to start doing some kind of allowance and chose responsiblities around here.

Flower Pencils

 

You have probably seen flower pens somewhere...... I first saw them a few years ago at our doctors office. They said to go ahead and grab a pen to sign something..... uh, where are the pens? They were right there in a little bucket full of dried beans, it looked like a flower pot decoration. Very cute.
Anyway, I decided to try to make it a little different. So we looked for flowers of different colors to put on the matching colored pencils. Then if they were "planted" the kids would know what color they were grabbing. It was harder than I thought to find the colors I needed. I am, obviously, still missing some. I also got the wrong kind of stem wrap and it was super sticky after wrapping. So I will need to get something different. Anyway..... if you are doing a bunch of them in the same color - it's fairly easy to find the flowers cheap. A variety is a lot harder.
They turned out fairly well. I find that my urge to craft and create is so much stronger here in the apartment than it has been for awhile. I think I need to control something - to feel like I'm accomplishing something. So much of our lives are up in the air right now that it feels good to be grounded by creating something.